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Posts published by “Alastair Bland”

Booze Cruise

Where there is sugar, yeast will find it — and so we have alcohol. The natural wonder we call fermentation has been discovered and replicated independently in nearly every region of earth, and virtually nowhere…

Love On The Road

People’s paths cross endlessly as they make their brief journeys through this world, but only occasionally do eyes meet and sparks fly. Even less often, the two paths will course together for a distance, and…

Football or Rugby: Who’s Tougher?

Super Bowl Sunday is over up, and I’ve been asking local pubs here on the South Island of New Zealand if they caught the world’s biggest game on television. But the national sport of New…

Faux Pas

The Turks were so patient for putting up with me this fall as I cycled around the western half of Turkey. I cringe now when I recall the many times, while in conversation with strangers,…

Going Up

Gravity dictates the truest mantra on Earth: What goes up must come down. But give me a bicycle and a mountain, and I’ll break that law or die trying. Whether by blessing or curse, I…

Salmon & Water Wars

San Joaquin Valley irrigation districts, which filed a lawsuit this month to stop California's commercial salmon fishing season just five days after it began, say they're worried that fishing will harm the state's salmon populations,…

Has Trucking Saved Our Salmon?

With an ocean salmon fishing season set to open on April 2nd and fishery managers estimating that coastal waters currently boast more salmon than they have in five dismal years, it appears that the severe…

Will Commercial Catch Shares Sink Local Fleets?

A lawsuit filed by local commercial fishermen may not stop what plaintiffs see as a corporate scheme to privatize the ocean and eliminate small-boat fishermen from the water. On Jan. 13, a new fishery management…

Georgian Wine

They came to California by FedEx in September, two dozen grapevine specimens collected on a government fruit-collecting trip to the Republic of Georgia. They will eventually be rooted at the US Department of Agriculture’s tree…

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